Last Post

by Robert Barnard

  “So was the marriage a sort of . . . compensation for going against their wishes?”

  “Maybe. And me already nearly twenty-five. How could I be so mad, at that age?”

  “It was the custom. You can’t call that madness.”

  “It was mad: to marry when I felt nothing.”

  “And what does your wife do all day?”

  “Sanjula? She visits members of her family. Sometimes too my parents. Goes out with other young mothers—Indian ones, of course. Her English does not improve, but then she hardly ever uses it. She keeps the house beautiful and clean, watches Bollywood movies, dreams of being back again where the sun shines . . .”

  “Wouldn’t that be the ideal situation? Well, not ideal, because of the child, but perhaps the best thing that could happen in the circumstances?”

  Rani’s eyes showed his shock.

  “But then the shame. She is afraid of that, and would hate it.”

  “Why should there be any shame? Your parents made a mistake—”

  “I tell you, there would be shame. Parents do not make mistakes. They have age, and therefore wisdom. Children make mistakes. They do not try hard enough. They have been corrupted by the wicked West.”

  “That’s yourself you’re thinking of, isn’t it? Your wife doesn’t know enough of the West to be corrupted by it.”

  “Exactly. But I do, and I have definitely been corrupted. Why else would I choose a job which is totally unheard of in our family? They have marked me down as a failure for that too.”

  “And are you a failure as a policeman?”

  “No.” There was no hesitation, and he smiled, with both pleasure and pride. “I think I have become a pretty good policeman. And that is not so easy when there is a tough and merciless minority who have their eyes on you hoping you will make a mistake. A big mistake. They have been disappointed. All my mistakes have been routine, everyday ones.”

  “Good. I somehow feel relieved that I have a policeman friend.”

  He looked at her sharply.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me? Some reason you would need a policeman friend?”

  She paused and thought. “The reason I’m not telling you the full contents of the letter now is not that I don’t trust you. It’s that it’s so vague, nebulous. I’ve no reason to think it’s a criminal matter. If I do find it is, I’ll tell you. But it’s you we’re talking about.”

  Rani stood up.

  “No, it is not. I am much to blame. I should not have loaded you down with my problems. It is for me to solve them—they come from my community.”

  “Are you sure?” persisted Eve. “Are you sure they don’t come from the fact that you are very Westernized, and your family wants to keep you in the ways and beliefs of their background?”

  “Maybe,” he said reluctantly.

  “That attempt is doomed. You live in England, surrounded by the English.”

  “But there is much in my family that I love and respect.”

  “And you will choose those things and reject the other things. Your daughter will do the same, only she will embrace more and reject more.”

  “Perhaps.” At the front door Rani turned and looked her in the eyes. “I do not know what to do.”

  “Couldn’t you start by really talking over the situation with your wife?”

  “It seems so hopeless—trying to make her understand.”

  “But you say she is not happy.”

  “She blames me. As my family blames me. As I sometimes blame myself . . . But then I ask myself: is this all there is ever going to be? Is this the most important part of my life? That is the part where I always hoped to do good. Bring up my children well. Make my wife happy and proud of me. So what can I hope for instead? Just emptiness. A long, long emptiness. Right at the heart of my being.”

  Instinctively Eve opened her arms. Equally instinctively he made a step toward her, and then his body seemed to suffer a great wrench, and he stopped and turned away.

  “No, I must not, cannot,” he said.

  “That is for you to decide,” said Eve, and there was a very obvious catch in her voice.

  “You are quite right. I must act myself. Be myself. Do my own difficult work.”

  And he shot through the front door and disappeared into the dark street.

  CHAPTER 5

  Watching

  The brash-sounding young man at the Huddersfield Tourist Information Office went off on a tangent immediately.

  “Oh yes, we have amateur groups. And of course we have the Rep, and regular visits from touring companies—”

  “No,” said Eve firmly, hearing her mother’s voice in her own. “It’s the amateur groups I’m interested in.”

  “Oh . . . right,” said the young man, obviously deploring her settling for second best. “Well, we have the Huddersfield Amateur Dramatic Society, and then there’s the Comedy Club . . . I’ve just put up a playbill for the Comedy Club’s next production. High Fever it’s called.”

  “I think you’ll find it’s Hay Fever. By Noël Coward.”

  “Oh . . . You’re absolutely right. I misread it.”

  And had never heard of the play, Eve thought.

  “I’m about to move to Huddersfield, you see, and I’ve always been involved in amateur dramatics, wherever I’ve lived, and I thought I’d make contact . . .”

  The young man smartened up his act, having been caught out.

  “Well, let’s see. I’ll just get them on the computer . . . Just wait a minute . . . Oh, it’s very slow—obviously going to be one of those days . . . Here we are. It’s got the name of the secretary here. Would that do?”

  “Do you have his or her telephone number too?”

  “Her. We’re very behind the times here. Traditional roles for women. Yes, her name is Edwina Fothergill, and the number is 01484 437 554.”

  Eve thanked him and put the phone down. She meditated over a cup of coffee in order to get her story in order, then rang the number. The voice that answered sounded like the actress Celia Johnson doing one of her put-upon Englishwomen in the 1950s.

  “Four three seven five five four. Edwina speaking.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Fothergill, my name is Carol Dalton. I got your number from the tourist information office.”

  “Oh really? I often wonder if they’ve heard of us. And it’s Miss, by the way.”

  “Oh yes, I—”

  “After the usual messy divorce, I reverted.”

  “Very wise, I’m sure. I’ve been involved for many years with amateur dramatics,” lied Eve, determined not to be diverted on to the messy divorce. “I’m about to move to Huddersfield and I’m looking for a group to join.”

  “We’re very welcoming at the Comedy Club. Known for it. Unlike the HADS people, who are awfully snooty. With no reason to be. They basically don’t want new people because they will take the parts away from the older ones. Our next production is Hay Fever, but of course that’s already cast and well into the production period. It’s coming on in November, you see. The next one after that, in springtime, is No Sex Please, We’re British. Not my favorite play, but it always packs them in. Everyone loves a good farce.”

  Eve remembered reading that a great actor had said farce was the one thing that should never be tackled by amateurs.

  “That sounds fun, at any rate,” she said. “I’m in my late thirties, by the way, but I can pass for thirty at a pinch. I suppose you will have a casting session?”

  “Oh yes, we certainly will. At the end of October. There’s quite a lot of competition—friendly competition—for the good parts.”

  “I suppose so. The elderly actresses always seem short of roles, don’t they?”

  “Well, I suppose they are.” Skepticism was creeping into the voice. “But when they say that, what they mean is there aren’t many big roles, leading roles. There are lots of good, meaty roles for older actresses. In Hay Fever, for example, one of our regulars, who’s done Judith Bliss in
the past, is playing Clara the maid this time around. And she’s finding lots in it, when she can find the time to come to rehearsals.”

  “And how old is she?” asked Eve, heart in mouth.

  “Jean Mannering? Oh, sixty, sixty-five, I’d say. That’s a bit too old for Judith Bliss. And anyway, everyone had seen her Judith. But there’s no side to her, and she just auditioned for Clara. She always says there’s no such thing as a small part. Trouble is, she’s wildly busy in her day job.”

  “It’s people like that that amateur theater depends on, isn’t it?” said Eve, sounding intolerable even to herself. “At least I don’t have a day job at the moment. Look, I’ll give you a ring when I do finally move to Huddersfield, or to the area. I shouldn’t have mentioned the move as definite because it never is with property these days, is it? Not until you’ve actually moved and got the money in the bank for the sale of your old house. I’ll ring you and you can tell me what’s going on and when the next auditions are.”

  They exchanged courtesies and Eve rang off with a sense of a job well done. That same afternoon she drove into Halifax and found the telephone directory for Huddersfield in the reference library. It gave a Mannering J as living in 23 Portland Gardens, Heckford, Huddersfield. She noted down the address and the telephone number.

  That evening she was rung by Rani.

  “Miss McNabb?” the voice asked very formally. “It’s Omkar Rani here.”

  “I know. I knew the voice at once.”

  “Er . . . I want to apologize very sincerely for being a very poor guest last night. It was unforgivable to burden you with my problems.”

  “I didn’t feel burdened. I felt I was sharing with you, and that pleased me.” Rani had been speaking low, and in the background there were the sounds of men shouting and telephones ringing. “I realize you can’t talk freely—”

  “No, I can’t. However, I wished to ask you not to cut me off from your investigation. It is something that interests me very much.”

  “That was exactly what I was going to ask you. I would like to have you on my side.”

  “Then we are agreed. But perhaps we should communicate by telephone.”

  Eve sighed silently.

  “Very well, if we must, and if that suits you better. If we are discussing the question of the letter to my mother, there is no reason why you shouldn’t call me from home.”

  “No, that is true. There is no reason not to call from what you call my home . . . But I will also send you my police card. I would have given it to you last night but . . . events intervened. Thank you for your kindness, Miss McNabb.”

  With the rational part of her brain, Eve thought: that’s one horribly mixed-up young man. With her brain’s emotional part, Eve remembered how nearly they had come to embracing, and a wave of tenderness for him swept through her. No doubt they both were in danger of becoming involved on the rebound, each wanting to fill a void in their lives with something that had been lacking: he was perhaps attracted to her by her maturity, her experience, her lack of silliness and shallowness; she was attracted to him by his youth, his energy, his confidence in everything except his emotional life. Nothing may come of it, she said to herself. But she was quite sure she wanted to know him much better.

  • • •

  Next morning very early Eve drove into Crossley and told her mother’s newsagent to continue sending the Guardian for the moment, as she was unsure how long she needed to stay in Crossley to put her mother’s affairs in order. In among the shop’s detritus from the end of the tourist and walking seasons she found a street guide to Huddersfield and bought it. Then she set off in quest of Heckford and Portland Gardens.

  All trace of the gardens that presumably were once there had long gone, except for little square patches in front of the Victorian and Edwardian houses. These were superseded halfway along the road by postwar semis and a few very new jerry-built detached houses with garages, some of them with conservatories glued on recently. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Eve parked her car near, but not too near, number 23, and waited. She very much wanted to talk to Jean Mannering, and had the letter from her in her handbag, but she was not sure she was ready to do it yet. She had picked up a couple of sandwich packs and a carton of milk on the way there, and she ate half of the chicken and bacon, drank some milk, and had one of her occasional cigarettes. She thought about what she was doing and why, about her mother and their relationship: had they really been close, or was there just the friendly familiarity of mother and daughter, without real warmth? But if that was all there was, why was she caring so much about what she had read in the letter? Most of all she thought about Rani.

  After more than an hour she was rewarded. The heavy door of number 23 was opened and a woman with gray hair, wearing a coat against the early autumn chill, came down the stone steps, opened the gate and walked away from Eve’s car and toward the little row of shops that she had noticed five minutes away. Her walk was straight backed, and she had passed into the street like someone making an entrance. An actress, surely. Eve was out of her car in a trice and across the road, staying a suitable distance behind her quarry. As she passed number 23, she noted that there were three doorbells in a downward line beside the front door: two flats and a bedsit in the roof, she thought. The woman was walking briskly—no sign of arthritis or a failing hip. She popped a letter into the post box as she passed, then took out her purse and went into the tiny newsagent’s and general store. She emerged with the Radio Times and the Independent. She kept on toward the shops, several of which had become takeaways of various national persuasions. But there was still a butcher clinging on till retirement age, and the woman went in and bought lamb chops (Eve could see the butcher taking them from the window). Then she went farther, to what called itself a minimarket on the far end of the row of shops. Eve dallied on the other side of the road, and at one point she thought she had been noticed: at the cash desk the woman suddenly turned around and looked through the window. But then she walked over and fetched something on special offer, and went back to the cashier. When the woman came out, her transparent plastic bag seemed to contain potatoes, some other vegetable in a plastic pack, the special offer dishwasher powder and some kind of breakfast cereal. The woman began back toward home, but was stopped by someone she knew—a man in a tweedy but perky hat and a thigh-length mac. Eve had by then crossed the road and lingered at the window of a secondhand furniture shop pretending to sell antiques. The conversation of the pair she was watching was as brisk as Jean Mannering’s walk, and she soon was starting up again. Presently she was back with the postwar semis and the late-twentieth-century hodgepodges, and then back to her own row of turn-ofthe-century houses. Tripping up the steps without hesitation, she disappeared through her own front door. Offstage and into the wings.

  Eve would have liked to get an interview with her then and there—to pop up the steps after her, ring the doorbell then sit down in Jean’s flat and ask her what her relationship with her, Eve’s, mother had been. Just to have it over with, to know, would have removed a burden—no, removed a piece of baggage—from her mind. But she felt herself miserably unprepared for a searching conversation with a woman who showed every sign of being on the ball. An alert, still-observant mind, with strong, long-held opinions—that was how she would have summed up the lady she had been observing for the last twenty minutes. She decided that talking to her was best done after considerable preparation.

  That evening Eve rang Rani to report progress.

  “Good evening, Miss McNabb,” came his soft but decided voice.

  “Good evening, Mr. Rani. I hope you don’t mind me ringing you at home?”

  “Where else? Remember you said that we are not talking about any criminal matter.”

  “Of course we aren’t. Let me bring you up to date.”

  When she had finished her account of the day’s events, Rani thought for a bit.

  “You cannot be sure that the woman you saw was Jean Mannering.”r />
  “Well, not sure, but I felt . . . No, forget I said that. What I felt isn’t evidence.”

  “No, it isn’t. What you guessed is that there is another flat in the house, and perhaps a bedsit up in the attic. Of course you should prepare for the interview—if you get to have one—but not on the presumption that it will be with the woman you saw.”

  “Right. Point taken. Anything else?”

  “Remember that the woman who wrote to your mother is an actress. Only an amateur, but apparently a good, versatile one. Even if you drop in on her unexpectedly, she may have a repertoire of people whose personae she can assume. Try not to attack her in any way, but just keep the talk apparently casual. That way you’ll have a better chance of penetrating the mask, if there is one.”

  “Thank you. I’m sure that’s good advice. How are you? Feeling better?”

  “No. But thank you for asking, Miss McNabb.”

  That last exchange did not help Eve in preparing to talk to Miss or Mrs. Mannering. She could hardly keep the image of Rani out of her mind, especially his big, dark, hopeless eyes. By the next morning she had half-decided that this was not the day to drive over again to Huddersfield.

  The morning post was showing signs of natural diminution. The people who had wanted to have their say on her mother had had it. But there were enough letters addressed to herself that she opened them quickly without studying the envelopes, and there was one that therefore came as a surprise. The address at the top of the letter was the Huddersfield address she already knew.

  Dear Miss McNabb,

  You will not know me, though I saw you often when you were in your pram. A friend in Halifax has just told me the news of your mother’s death and funeral. We were very good friends in her early days in Crossley, and I do wish we had resumed communication when May had retired and we both had time to do things together. As it was we had simply drifted apart, and didn’t even send the ritual Christmas card. Sad!

  You have my deepest sympathy. I calculate May must have been about sixty-seven. These days that is a very early age to go. I hope time is beginning its healing work.